In this letter to the editor, the author comments on the Signal Spot column, “The Top 20 U.S. Locations to Scan the FM Dial.” Radio World welcomes letters to the editor on this or any story. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

When I saw the recent article about “quiet locations” for the FM band, it reminded me of 1980s field testing we conducted on prototype vehicles to examine the real-world impact of vehicle-generated RF noise on FM radio reception.

Our goal was to start from a location somewhere in the U.S. while listening to an FM station and to drive away until the signal was unlistenable without first- or second-adjacent interference or another co-channel signal captured the receiver before its usable sensitivity limit was reached. We also strived for a low or no multipath environment.

Once at that point, we would kill the vehicle electronics with the exception of the radio to see how much better, if any, reception was. We did this with multiple stations over a period of several days.

Our starting point was North Platte, Neb., driving north toward Valentine. I chose that route for our experiments in the early 1980s based on a manual analysis of FCC databases long before Longley-Rice was available.

The test vehicles had been measured for radiated and conducted emissions in the lab before the trip, so we knew what the vehicle generated RF interference levels were in advance.

The testing was part of an early electronic control module effort by one of the major U.S. automotive OEMs and their car radio supplier to determine realistic limits for radiated and conducted emissions for vehicle electronic components.

Very few owners would ever experience these weak signal areas but they provided some real world limits of receiver performance, both in the presence and absence of interference.

When I saw Valentine, Neb., on the map in your article, it refreshed the memory of that trip. That was back in the days when car radios were king of the center stack.

A lot has happened since then.

— Paul Dobosz, Holland, Mich.

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